Saint Isaac's Blend

I love grapefruit, but it’s hard to find a truly grapefruity tea that isn’t overly bitter or too much like orange or lemon. Upton’s Summer Blend was close, but not quite there—Dylan recommend that I try this one (which happily enough I’d already ordered a sample of), which I finally remembered when digging through my samples. All those Upton ones packaged for Batman are on the very bottom of the bin!

This should be called “Earl Grapefruit.” It’s BAM POW GRAPEFRUIT, right up in your face. Tangy, bitter, acidic, sooooo good. I mean, good if you like grapefruit, since it’s kind of an acquired taste. My bf looks at me in horror when I chug glasses of it, but hey, more for me! Saint Isaac is like grapefruit juice with some tea thrown in—you get the base which is pretty strong, bright, and brisk, but the beginning and end of the sip are grapefruit all the way. I am in total tea-love with this, and there’s enough left in my sample to try it a few different ways still. I think this will be delicious iced!

EDIT: Apparently by trying it iced later I meant right now! It’s actually not quite as good iced and loses some of that graprefuity goodness, but it’s still tasty. In the future though I’ll brew this hot.

Dry – this smells like sour grapes!

Hot this is a mellower black tea base with a bit of fruitiness to it. There is also a hint of smoke that combats the fruit notes but somehow works well!

This is great cold, btw!

My new teapot from Upton arrived this morning (I shall call him Colin). It’s one of the 4-cup Chatsford Bone China (on-sale!) pots that I’d been eyeballing for over a month — so I’m thinking that it’s fate that Tim was mortally wounded (Tim’s now chilling on one of my bedside tables right next to my Wonder Woman lunchbox — every now-and-then he gets to wear the cozy Doulton made just for fun).

Anywho, since I was ordering from Upton I naturally had to get a few samples (I’m so weak). I held myself to the three that were on my shopping list. And this is the one with which I decided to christen Colin.

I could very much smell the bergamot when I opened the packet, but it was almost a woodsy bergamot. After steeping it’s a lot more woodsy than bergamotty. It’s a pleasant, innoffensive cup of black tea. The description mentions grapefruit — I get no grapefruit. Maybe in the distant aftertaste, but I’m not a fan of grapefruit so this is a good thing.

Overall it’s a decent breakfast tea, but I don’t plan on buying more of this. NE

Another gift from Doulton – What a great package she sent me!

I was a little concerned when I first read on this tea, as it is a “Russian” Earl Grey – and that typically communicates to me “smoky.” But, after smelling the tea I could detect no strong smoky scent – a slight smokiness, yes, but, not a strong smoky scent – I decided to go ahead and brew some and give it a try.

I’m glad I did! This is delightful. As the company description reads on this tea – it’s a departure from traditional earl grey. I can taste the grapefruit notes, which are in perfect harmony with the bergamot! The slight smoky scent translates into the brewed liquor as well, but again, it is not a strong, smoky flavor.

Pleasantly robust with a bright, vigorous flavor – this would be an excellent tea for one of those mornings that I’d rather not be awake, but have to be! (Kind of like this morning was! haha) A dry astringency to the tea, but not unpleasantly so.

I did not brew it as long as the steeping suggestions recommend – and I’m glad I didn’t. I feel that at 2 1/2 minutes, this tea is strong and flavorful, but, I fear that at 5 minutes I would have had a bitter tasting cup.

This is one that I would consider buying – but you know what? It’s not one that I would have considered buying before this tasting. I MUST get over my predisposition to automatically dismiss a Russian blend. Russian blends are good!

This has to be the only Earl grey type tea I can’t taste the bergamot inx. I found lots of grapefruit and a malty medium bodied base. I didn’t get the lime I was looking for. I also totally missed the smoke I thought I’d find in here. Not a bad tea, but not one I’m wanting to stock up on.

Laying in bed, sneaking in my last reviews of the night using my tablet.

Ordered this one on a whim from Upton. There are really a lot of things I will try for a one or two dollar sample, and a billion different Earl Grey blends definitely qualify.

I’m not sure if my nose is just getting more sensitive, but this is another in a growing list of teas that has really smelled overpowering straight out of the bag. It’s a little odd, considering the number of jokes that my sister and I have historically made about my poor sense of smell.

Long story short, the grapefruit smell of this tea was quite strong.

And so was the grapefruit flavor! I’m not sure if St. Isaac was the patron saint of grapefruit or not, but that is where he is going to live in my head. This tea is very strong in it’s grapefruityness, with only a shred of lemony other citrus at the end of the sip. The tea aftertaste was very smooth, with a light malt, but I’m definitely not tasting any smoke.

This isn’t a bad tea, but it isn’t going to find much of a place in my tea closet. Citrus teas seem to be done much better by about every other citrus than grapefruit, so I’ll stick with one (or all!) of those.

Maybe I got a bad batch or something. I don’t get any of the flavors Upton mentions in their description or that other folks here on Steepster mention.

It was a fine, standard black tea. But no citrus and no bergamot. Hm.

This is the first EG in a big batch of EG samples from Upton Tea Imports. (I ordered 22 different teas, over half of which are EGs!) I’m not the biggest EG fan (though I do like it) but the husband is (I blame Star Trek TNG), so the purpose of this endeavor is to find him a go-to, must-have EG to keep on hand. And bonus points if I like it a lot, too.

Taken with sugar and whole milk, this tea reminds me of last week’s Twining’s Lady Ear Grey – fairly soft with a more lemony taste than straight bergamot. The one thing I missed in the Lady EG was the actual tea taste (which I attribute to the teabag being old) but this one fixes that problem. The tea base is nicely noticeable, though it doesn’t scream a particular tea type – bolder than the typical Ceylon, not rich as the typical Yunnan… it makes total sense that this is a Ceylon/Chinese black blend because that is what it tastes like. While the base isn’t overly special, it is nice to have a tea base that tastes obviously tea-like but not overly Ceylon.

The flavoring and overall tone of the tea is soft and relaxing – not a harsh EG at all, but not so soft that it is girlie frou-frou either. There’s a little prickle to the tea that is either astringency or a little roughness to the tea base taste. And even though it doesn’t taste like a bold wake-up tea, the caffeine level is enough to make me perkier than I justifiably should be.

I like this one a little more than Twining’s Lady EG simply by virtue of having a more noticeable tea base (though I reserve the right to adjust that ruling if I ever get the chance to have some fresher (and hopefully more tea-tasting) Lady EG). It’s probably not the smoothest EG I hope to find but it’s nice and very drinkable so I would have no problems adding this one to the regular tea rotation (if this one ends up getting the husband’s vote for ‘must-have’ EG).

I really like this tea and have been drinking it for several days now. I was a bit afraid of trying this because it is a Russian Earl Grey and I’ve not come across any smoky teas – so I’m not sure I’d like it. Fortunately, the smoky aspect is very light and complements the bergamot flavoring nicely. The smoke isn’t center stage, but rather just gives a slight warmth/tingling at the back of your throat. I also like that they added grapefruit to this blend which provides a kick of extra citrus but without the “drinking perfume” issue that can happen with Earl Grey. This one is getting high marks for sure and going on my shopping list. I love Earl Grey and this is perhaps the “perfect Earl” that I have been dreaming of.

Tea of the afternoon…..

I think this one kind of reminds me of Lady Grey and Fortnum & Mason’s Countess Grey. It is a brighter citrus take on Earl Grey for sure. For some reason, I thought it would be smokey, but I was wrong. I might consider buying this one when my tin of Countess Grey is depleted, but it is just too similar.

Steeped by the usual parameters.

This tea smelled amazing. I could detect the bergamot loud and clear. Upton Teas says that “artificial flavoring” is included. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps more citrus and maybe some smoky grapefruit? The tea itself is just “aight” as Randy Jackson might say. There’s nothing wrong with it at all, but that spectacular aroma set me up with greater expectations than Pip ever had.

Saint Isaac’s Blend turns out to be a very serviceable Earl Grey. Not a bad one by anymeans, but the dry aroma just does not translate into the steeped tea. It’s a nicey, but not a greaty.

This is interesting. It is a good tea but tastes kind of heavy, like the Taylors of Harrogate version. It does it has good flavors but very subtle bergamot. (I could be imagining this but it might seem like I can get a taste of Bohea – maybe because it has smokiness to it or maybe the tumbler wasn’t cleaned well.) Overall, very good for a new Earl Grey – I would put it up near some of the better ones and would say this could be a good standby Earl Grey. It continues to grow on me the more I drink.

Great blend with just enough Bergamot to give it another layer of complexity. I think most Earl Grey blends have too much Bergamot to overshadow a lesser quality of tea. This has pretty much replaced Earl Grey in our house.

Just received this tea along with 5 other 15 gram satchels from Upton! My girlfriend and I decided to test this one out in tandem. I tried mine plain, while she added milk and sugar. Results are as follows:

Milk and Sugar turned the drink into a candied treat bringing out the bergamont flavors. While plain, one could admire the black tea taste itself which was interestingly Smokey.

Both were good, but I desired a middle path. Next day I did just that but chose to steep it a minute shorter to see what else I could taste. This process left me with the citrus notes. The more I drank it the more I could taste grapefruit.

So far so good, I particularly like how easy it is to taste the described flavors. All it takes is a little experimenting.

Still trying to decide if I really like Earl Grey tea. At first, I did not care for the black tea base, but as this cools it is better. Would I buy this tea again, the jury is still out on that note. The bergamont is not too much, but it is there. I can taste the grapefruit notes and can’t decide if I really like it…

Upton Tea Sampler Buying Spree Tea #5:
Next up in my Earl Greyathon, Russian style Earl Grey, chosen because it was on the top of the pile. Brews up lighter colored than the Blue Flower, but the tea taste is quite strong – stronger, I would say than the flavorings in it. The citrus taste is very faint and not really what I associate with bergamot at all. As the description says, it’s definitely a departure from traditional Earl Grey – in fact, I’m not sure it has that much in common with Earl Grey at all. Still tasty though! And this is only my first go at it, perhaps if drunk after a non-Earl Grey tea, it would be more obvious.
I don’t know where the steeping suggestions come from, but my sample packet said 4 minutes instead of 5; I think in later tries i will vary the time to see what happens.

Russian style, pretty good

Shorter seeping time to gain more of the citrus notes.